Mackay Boatyard

We're still in Mackay, at the marina.

Its quite a glam marina with groomed gardens, fancy holiday apartments, swish restaurants 

and trendy pubs. 

The rest of the town, or at least the parts that we could see from the bus, is frankly quite ugly. Its a just like Voortrekker road but without the poverty. Sprawling industrial sites merge into low functional and cheaply constructed commercial buildings with no style or appeal and residential neighborhoods of neglected plain low houses. Yet it is probably quite a nice place to live and bring up a family. Everything works, everything is clean and everyone is super friendly and helpful. 

The tide here is hectic. The full range from spring low to spring high is over six meters. And they get cyclones here, so the shoreline is far back, tall and heavily reinforced. 

The inter-tidal sand flats are perfect for long beach walks

The reason we're here is to get Pegasos lifted out of the water so that we can get the prop-shaft issue finally resolved and redo the anti-fouling paint and get a few other repairs sorted. Lifting a boat out of the water is always a big event.

Positioning the travel-lift slings.

And up ...

And out ...

And finally parked on the hard:

We've spent a week here, living on the boat and getting lots of things attended to. 

I dig living in the boatyard: lots of cool boats, neat engines and other fascinating boat bits lying around and skilled tradesmen doing their thing. Marcelle on the other hand hates living the boatyard: lots of boring boats, greasy engines and other rusty bits lying around and grubby tradesmen doing their thing And now we're finished doing all the things that we need to do. But the travel-lift crane has broken down and so we're getting and extra night in the boatyard for free. One of us is happy! 

Island Head Creek to Mackay

Hot showers! What a luxury!  We're in Mackay, moored in a posh marina and are reveling in civilised ablutions. And especially the endless water. Even available in HOT! There's been a few challenges in this adventure and having to scrimp on water use is near the top of the list.

Another challenge has been communications and especially access to the internet and weather forecasts, as Marcelle mentioned in the last blog post from Island Head Creek. We were stuck for two days without communication, not much to do as we could not go ashore, too much wind and no idea of when it would calm down and no idea of when we would next be able to get more water.

From there it was a short sail to Cape Townshend, another beautiful wild anchorage with superb beaches backed with densely forested hills. And no internet! Once again we couldn't go ashore because we were still in the huge restricted military zone. Occasionally the Australians invites soldiers from America and other allies to come here in their tens of thousands for huge military exercises. If there is ever an invasion of North Korea or some other jungle country this is where they would have done the dress rehearsals.  

The next day we left early and sailed to South Percy Island, another stunningly beautiful remote and densely forested unspoiled island. This should have  been our second proper tropical island visit with long walks along the beach, but that didn't happen. On the way the repairs that I had made on the propshaft coupling to the gearbox wore out and rattled apart.  Not being able to use the engine, we had to drop anchor further offshore hoping the drift with sail wouldn't pull us onto the beach. When we arrived at the anchorage I had my head in the engine compartment until it was too late to go ashore. The biting midges come out at about 4pm and then it's best to be off the beaches.  Another boat, Katarina III arrived shortly after us and we were the only 2 boats anchored.

Marcelle looking on towards the beach where once again she can't go for a walk. 5th day of being confined to the boat and cabin fever sets in.

South Percy is not a very comfortable anchorage and so we only spent one night and headed off early the next day to sail the 30 nautical miles to Curlew Island.  Katarina III left at the same time and we gratefully accepted their kind offer to tow us to the channel where we were able to put up the sails.  The forecast was for south east winds but we got south west winds instead and as we were sailing to the west this meant that instead of sailing comfortably and quickly with the wind behind us we were beating into the wind, and Pegasos doesn't like that. Along this stretch of the Queensland coast there is a gap in the offshore barrier reef and so it is exposed to the BIG swells rolling across from the open ocean. It was a rough ride.

On the way we passed a few small but spectacular rocky islands.

Our destination, Curlew Island is another super island with an uncomfortable anchorage. Once again the propshaft had rattled apart and required another desperate repair. Hose clamps, a few bolts, epoxy putty, meters of nylon cord, all sorts of things got jammed into and around and over the shaft coupling. This time it worked and lasted all the way to Mackay, where a bewildered mechanic finally got to take it all apart. We don't know the extent of the damage yet. Not going to be cheap ...

At Curlew Island we did at last get to go ashore and swim in the warm clear water and walk along pristine wild beaches. 

We spent three nights here waiting for the weather to improve. The wind was howling and the next stretch would be our longest yet at about 45 nautical miles. Six other boats were also anchored here waiting for the wind to drop a bit for the long ride to Mackay. Generally when we went ashore at Curlew we were the only people on the whole island, which is quite special, but we did get to meet a few people from the other boats. 

The wind calmed a bit but it was still strong, gusting over 20 knots with big swells lifting us up to about 4m in the sky at times. It was a roller-coaster ride. And fast! Adding to the excitement was all the shipping as we passed Hay Point, the worlds biggest coal export terminal.  This diagram gives an idea of just how much coal Australia exports, and coal gets exported in really huge bulk-carrier ships.

These huge ships were scattered about in all directions. We counted 28 but there were probably more. They were all anchored waiting to go to the loading berth one at a time but it's quite stressful not knowing which one of them might suddenly come bounding over the waves towards us. 

When we got to Mackay harbour, we had to wait before entering the harbour while two tugs slowly pushed a big ship into the harbour.  With our fingers crossed, we switched on the engine and circled on a rough sea hoping that the engine would last until the big ship was berthed and we could enter. We were not alone, circling with 2 other yachts from Curlew Island, one being Phil on Kite Runner who kept an eye on our predicament until we were safely in the marina.  That evening we met up with the people from the other boats who had sailed from Curlew Island. We went to a sports pub for beer and supper and to watch a big screen TV rivalry match of a strange variant of rugby that only Australians care about. And boy do they care about it!

Tomorrow we'll get Pegasos lifted out of the water to get the propshaft properly fixed so that we can have a reliable engine again. That's what we most care about right now.  

A tropical island at last

We were up early on Friday morning and left Maria Inlet at 7.20.

 It was a bit chilly and we were wearing warm jackets when we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn at 8.10. Finally we were in the tropics - wearing jackets and jerseys.

We motor sailed straight north the rest of the way passing Arch Rocks and Peak Island.

We sailed into a pretty bay and anchored at Great Keppel Island just after midday. It is the classic tropical island of calm clear water and golden sandy beaches with pretty shells.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't tropical and only Robert went in for a swim to check out the sea life below the boat.

There were about 30 other boats anchored in the bays, including the caravel we had passed out of Bundaberg.

The weather remained overcast and a bit nippy over the next few days so we used the opportunity to go walking.  Great Keppel Island has many walking tracks to various look out points. The walking tracks are reasonably rugged in a few places so our legs got a bit of a welcome workout

.   

On the mainland the indigenous vegetation is mixed subtropical forest with a variety of tall trees, including gums and acacias, plants that in South Africa grow in horrible invasive monotonous thickets but here in their native environment no individual species get to dominate any area and they are just part of the rich mixture of trees in quite appealing forests and are quite attractive. On the islands the same species mixture occurs, but all the trees are stunted because the soils are thin and rainfall is less and the salty sea winds all make life quite tough for the trees.The result is that the islands have this wonderful indigenous stunted forest of gnarly twisted almost bonsai-like dwarf trees growing to about four or five meters, about a third of their normal size. And because the trees are stunted the forests would never been harvested for timber like the mainland and so the trees get to be very old and the forests quite pristine. Most of the islands are now Nature Reserves. Unfortunately some of the islands had been completely denuded by goats in the past are are now grassy and quite bare of trees

. 

We walked along the long sandy beach and I collected some pretty shells which will remain as the island is part of the Australian Marine Reserve.

The sunsets were postcard beautiful.

The full moon rising on one of the evenings was particularly stunning.

On Monday, we woke up to rain - bizarre to be on a tropical island and the weather is too miserable to go out.  The skies cleared after lunch time and we took the dinghy to putter about a nearby beach and go for a short walk.

On Tuesday morning we were up at sparrow's fart and sailed from Great Keppel Island before sunrise.

It was also Robert's birthday and although he did not get any presents (not yet Robert), what better way to spend a birthday than sailing along smoothly on a nice boat with great company (that would be me, Robert). He did get home made chocolate cupcakes.  They were surprisingly good.  Surprisingly because when it comes to the boat oven, we guess the temperature.

It was a long leg of almost 9 hours (45 nautical miles) to Port Clinton. The wind was good and we sailed all the way.

Port Clinton is a bit of a misnomer as there is no port, no jetty, no buoy, no sign of human interference.  Instead it is a lovely unspoilt protective haven with calm water and a surprisingly deep hole of about 47 metres in the middle of the channel.

Anchoring was a bit tricky as we moved between 16 meters and less than 2 meters in a blink.  Once anchored it was peaceful and only the sound of strange unidentifiable plops in the water.

Port Clinton is part of the Defence Department training area and going ashore is prohibited. I was quite happy to stay aboard as we were back in croc country and the quiet inlets have the look of harboring crocs.

The next morning we left early with the intention of sailing to Cape Townshend.  We had researched the weather forecasts and allowed for a 2 day stay at Cape Townshend to escape pending high swells.  However, as we left the entrance of Port Clinton, we encountered swells higher than forecast, with hardly any wind.  Robert zig zagged about the planned route to make the most of the little wind but the roller coaster swells were very uncomfortable. After about 4 hours covering only 20 miles of a bumpy ride, we altered course to Island Head Creek which promised secure anchorage.  It was a little tricky coming in as there are unseen shallow spots but all was good.  There were several other boats who had seemingly made the same decision and already anchored so we puttered further down the creek to find our own spot hopefully clear of the drying sandbanks.

With no internet at Island Head Creek and no coastguard radio communication, we could not get a weather forecast but as the next morning seemed milder than the previous day, we headed out for Cape Townshend.

Through The Narrows

We left Boyne River early on Wednesday morning to catch the high tide over the shallow sandbar entrance.  Note how well we have learned this technique since Round Hill Creek.

The previous evening we went past ex-pat Andre and Cathy to say goodbye.  And Robert fetched yet another load of fresh water in Jerry cans

We will remember the colorful characters of Boyne River mouth, old Ben and off-beat Sock and the man living in his  tiny homemade trimaran on the bank.

Moving from south of Gladstone to north of Gladstone Harbour is a complex route with dredged shipping channels for the huge ships and shallow areas for everyone else.  As we left Boyne River, a big coal carrying ship sailed out in front of us. We got across the shipping channel as quickly as we could before the next big vessel came along.

There was no wind and we motored all the way to Graham Creek, slowly against a 2 knot current. A distance of 20 nautical miles took us four and a half hours.

There were many big ships berthed along the way and we kept a constant eye on them in case any started moving.

Graham Creek is a very pleasant anchorage, quiet and peaceful.  It is so easy to imagine crocs lurking on these mangrove banks that we didn't venture into the water.

In the late evening we saw a catamaran had anchored at the mouth of the creek. We were up at sunrise  the next morning to ensure we got maximum high tide over the shallowest part of The Narrows. The catamaran left a few minutes before us on the same route and we stuck behind the cat all through The Narrows with constant checking of the very useful Beacon to Beacon Guide. Navigational aids are plentiful through The Narrows but still require careful watch on the depth gauge.

The Narrows is a calm, very narrow waterway between Gladstone and Keppel Bay approximately 15 nautical miles long. The central area of about 6 miles dries at low tide to approximately 2 meters height making it too shallow for most keel boats.  Even Pegasos can only navigate this at maximum high tide. Another factor is that tides flood from each end, meeting in the middle and varying in time from one end to the other. Timing of tides is crucial and Robert did his sums perfectly and we made it through The Narrows without a problem.

This is what it looks like on Google Earth. We went from bottom right to top left. 

Following a tight route from beacon to beacon through the mangroves.

Although Pacific Creek is the popular anchorage, we dropped  anchor in nearby Maria Inlet as Pacific Creek requires high tide to cross the sandbar at the entrance and we did not want to sit and wait for the next high tide which would mean entering the creek in the dark.

Much like Graham Creek, Maria Inlet is comfortable and calm and lined with croc-friendly mangroves on both sides. Too wary of crocs we lazed about in the sun on deck. Robert took the opportunity to extract his newly acquired collection of power tools and built a ladder which he hopes will enable madam to get out of the water back onto the boat (if we ever reach  croc-free clear water).